ABSTRACT

Australian Genre Film interrogates key genres at the core of Australia’s so-called new golden age of genre cinema, establishing the foundation on which more sustained research on film genre in Australian cinema can develop.

The book examines what characterises Australian cinema and its output in this new golden age, as contributors ask to what extent Australian genre film draws on widely understood (and largely Hollywood-based) conventions, as compared to culturally specific conventions of genre storytelling. As such, this book offers a comprehensive and up-to-date survey of Australian genre film, undertaken through original analyses of 13 significant Australian genres: action, biopics, comedy, crime, horror, musical, road movie, romance, science fiction, teen, thriller, war, and the Western.

This book will be a cornerstone work for the burgeoning field of Australian film genre studies and a must-read for academics; researchers; undergraduate students; postgraduate students; and general readers interested in film studies, media studies, cultural studies, Australian studies, and sociology.

chapter 3|16 pages

‘Beethoven Had His Critics, Too…’ 1

The Australian Biopic in the Twenty-First Century

chapter 4|15 pages

A Seamless Wedding

Comedy, Diversity, and the International

chapter 5|16 pages

New Australian Crime Drama

chapter 6|19 pages

A Monstrous Landscape Filled with Killer Animals and Madmen

Tropes of Contemporary Australian Horror Movies

chapter 7|13 pages

The Musical in Australia

Moving Minorities into the Mainstream

chapter 8|16 pages

Traversing Genre

The Australian Road Movie

chapter 9|15 pages

Courting the Romance

chapter 10|17 pages

Looking to the Future

Three Tendencies in Australian Science Fiction Cinema Since 2008

chapter 11|16 pages

‘Growing Up Was Never Easy’ 1

Coming of Age in the Teen Film

chapter 12|16 pages

Sun-Lit Noir

Australian Thrillers

chapter 13|17 pages

A Wider Angle

Australia’s War Films of the New Millennium

chapter 14|21 pages

Questioning the Australian Western